Posted on 01/11/2003 12:55:10 PM PST by hoosierskypilot
LEWISTON, Maine (Reuters) -- A white supremacist group whose leader is accused of trying to have a federal judge murdered said on Thursday it will proceed with plans to protest an "invasion" of this New England college community by Somali immigrants.
A spokesman for the World Church of the Creator said the group, which preaches hatred of Jews and blacks on its Web site, would stage a two-hour rally on Saturday in Lewiston, where it says the local white population is fed up with the influx of immigrants from the war-torn East African nation.
The spokesman, the Rev. John King of Newport News, Virginia, said the Lewiston protest would go ahead despite the arrest on Wednesday in Chicago of the Rev. Matt Hale on charges he tried to solicit the murder of U.S. District Court Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow.
Hale, 31, was arrested as he arrived at Chicago's federal courthouse to face a possible contempt charge for refusing to obey Lefkow's November ruling in a trademark case.
Hale told Reuters before his arrest that the Somalis were "invading" Lewiston, and that the residents of Maine's second-biggest city had welcomed his church's planned rally with open arms.
"The people of Lewiston want us there," said Hale, who claims he receives as many as five positive e-mails a day from local residents. "We've never received the groundswell of support we've gotten from the people of Lewiston."
But Phil Nadeau, Lewiston's assistant city administrator, said he doubted Hale's claims.
"He could say that aliens from Mars want him here, but can he prove it?" Nadeau said. "My impression is there's a significant number of people in this community who don't support him and a handful who do."
He noted that while only 40 or 50 people were expected to turn up for the white supremacists' rally, hundreds -- maybe thousands -- may attend a planned counter-demonstration the same day that will focus on diversity and attempt to show that Lewiston is embracing its newest residents.
For years, the former mill town was simply known as the place where Muhammad Ali flattened Sonny Liston in 1965.
But its booming Somali immigrant community has thrust Lewiston into the spotlight. More than 1,100 Somalis, seeking affordable housing, have moved to the city of 36,000 people in the past year.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
WARNING GRAPHIC
Look closely at the guy with the goggles and the gesture he's making:
http://home.att.net/~calisi/somalia2.jpg
While there might be a few decent folks among these immigrants they'll have to prove themselves first just as every other wave of immigrants has in the past.
BTW, do you agree with Jon Fox and the other members of the World Church of the Creator who spoke in Lewiston yesterday?
I already gave my position on the WCC- I referred to them as "an odious lot".
I simply believe that we should adopt a rational view towards these matters, much like the one that Israel takes. Nothing wrong with that one, is there?
I thought the focus was on illegal immigration, not legal immigration--or are you proposing that we expel legal immigrants as well?
Whenever you see yourself in a mirror, you are looking at one.
Is rejecting two better qualified white students at the U Michigan simply and solely because the University needed to fill their quota for Black students "moral"? Seems to me the white kids got screwed.
Hijacking a thread? This thread is about Somali immigrants in Lewiston, Maine, yet you throw in a completely irrelevant issue (with respect to the topic of this thread) about U of M.
That's certifiably insufferable, and you are as well.
Birth of Tha SYNDICATE, the philosophical heir to William Lloyd Garrison.
101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that Internet Explorer cannot.
You can add in any number of countries in Europe. The rise in antisemitism in Europe is startling, but yet not unexpected.
Not if people like you sound the alarm. I haven't heard the fat lady sing.
Hey, if the immigrants are welfare deadbeats or active in crime or anti American, I'm in favor of expelling them.
In fact, I say let's expel everybody in the USA who does any or all of these things.
What say ye?
If they're natural born US citizens, just where would you expel them to? Wouldn't it be simpler just to execute them?
We could give them their choice. Like, Kalifornia has done with some of its welfare deadbeats, by paying their one time moving expense to Nevada (up to $3000). Only, we could make it, say, Canada!
When you're talking welfare, does that include food stamps, medical assistance, heating assistance, Social Security (old age and disability)? When you're talking crime, are you talking about felonies, misdemeanors (see, here, one can be charged as an habitual criminal if a person has three misdemeanor convictions in five years), municipal violations? How about drunk driving (#5 and up is a felony in Wisconsin)? Possession of drugs? Or do they all go to Canada?
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